Malaysian restaurants to offer Wi-Fi by law

From April, all restaurants in the Malaysian capital city of Kuala Lumpur will be required to offer Wi-Fi to their customers by law. Owners are already installing the service, in preparation for when the new law becomes enforceable.

The new requirement is that it will be a "mandatory prerequisite for food operators when they apply for their licence to open a new restaurant or when existing operators renew their licence." The Next Web Asia also states that 1,500 free Wi-Fi hotspots which were activated by operator WirelessKL back in 2008 will now be discontinued.

As well as fully-blown restaurants, the law will apply to bars, pubs, cafes and club lounges that are larger than 120 square metres. It is seemingly part of a move to have the entire city covered by Wi-Fi - although, with the free service no longer in operation, many of the venues are expected to charge for connection to the service.